The witness was driving along Route 301 about 10:10 p.m. on April 23, 2015, when the object was first seen.

“At first glance I thought the lights might be from the wings of an unusually low-flying, very large airplane, but I quickly realized that this was not an airplane,” the witness stated. “I watched the lights more intently trying to figure it out, and thought that maybe it was two planes flying in sync with each other.”

The witness quickly ruled out the idea that it was two airplanes flying together.

“No, couldn’t be that either, especially considering the positions of the lights and the fact that the lights on the front and the back remained perfectly equidistant from each other the entire time the object flew by.”

The witness was driving along Route 301 near King George, VA, about 10:10 p.m. on April 23, 2015, when the object was first seen. (Credit: Google)

The object appeared to be a rectangle.

“From my view this object seemed like a large rectangle. The shorter ends had white lights, three (or maybe more) across the front and at least two on the back with one red light blinking in the middle of the rear (between the white lights). The object seemed very large because of the diminishing perspective of the row of lights, which at first made it seem like it was tilted at an angle, but then I realized it was actually a row of lights covering a long length (the way a long fence seems smaller and at an angle the farther away it is from the viewer).”

The witness described the object.

“The two rows of lights remained equidistant from each other the entire time the craft passed by. It was definitely not two planes flying in sync with each other, which my rational mind was trying to make work as an explanation. It floated very smoothly in a straight line from the right of my line of vision to my left. It was dark in the area between the lights. Though I seemed to be able to see ‘sky’ between the two rows of lights, I don’t remember actually being able to see stars.”

The object seemed like floating glass.

“It was like a large rectangular piece of glass floating by with lights at both ends. It seemed to be flying parallel to the Potomac River on the Virginia side, crossing Route 301, maybe heading toward northern Virginia or Washington, DC.”

The witness speculated on the object’s size.

“Size? I wouldn’t be surprised if this thing was at least 100 meters by 300 meters or so.”

The witness could not identify the object.

“My reaction? ‘What the hell is that?’ Awe and curiosity. I felt a little giddy and excited. I also felt some frustration that I didn’t have anything with me that could take a photo and that I had no place safely to pull over for a better view.”

The object appeared to be rectangular in shape and was flying very low. Pictured: Route 301 near King George, VA. (Credit: Google)

The object was unusually silent.

“I kept expecting to hear a loud engine, but never heard anything at all. I even opened my car window because I felt like I should be able to hear it. But I heard nothing but my own car. About 3-5 minutes passed from the time I noticed its approach from the front right of my view until I couldn’t see it anymore on my left (trees in the way). Very interesting.”

King George is the county seat of King George County, Virginia, population 4,457.

Virginia is currently a UFO Alert Level 5 – with 0.86 sightings per million population based on MUFON February 2015 statistics. Virginia received a total of seven UFO reports in March.

The UFO Alert Rating System is based on five levels – 1 through 5 – where states with 4.01 or higher reports per million residents are rated an Alert 1; 3.01 – 4.0 reports are an Alert 2; 2.51 – 3.0 are an Alert 3; 2.01 – 2.5 are an Alert 4; and those states with 2.0 or lower are rated an Alert 5.

Please remember that most UFO sighting can be explained as something natural or man-made. The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.

The witness was outside walking when the object was first noticed about 11:33 p.m. on August 24, 2014.

“I was prompted to notice a small, glowing, weird rod-shaped object hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground in the flimsy, leafy, outer branches of a large tree behind a house in my tranquil, heavily-wooded suburban neighborhood of Stratford Hills in Richmond, Virginia,” the witness stated.

The area is part of the witnesses’ regular walking route.

Witness image. (Credit: MUFON)

“I’m 54 years old and I’ve been walking this route nearly every day for 10 years and what I beheld at 11:33 p.m. on a very quiet Sunday night was abnormal and totally out-of-place! Most of my neighbors probably were in bed.”

Something odd caught the witnesses’ attention.

“I was fortunate to view the mysterious glowing object that seemed to be hiding up in the tree and I partially attribute my good fortune to the fact that it was a new moon – the darkest night of the month!”

The witness described the object.

“The silent UFO first was rod-shaped with a glowing blue light on the left end and a pinkish-violet light on the right end. It was hovering horizontally in a place where a human could not be. It was not a new-fangled bug zapper and there are no cable-TV or electric lines running near the tree and definitely not at that height. No logic for the uncanny faintly-glowing lights in the tree.”

The witness used an iPhone 4S with no zoom to shoot video of the object and then switched to shooting still images in order to zoom in. Thirty images were shot over a 10-minute period.

“During this time the small, anomalous, cylindrical UFO/entity morphed into an orb which sometimes appeared cobalt-blue and other times violet with a freaky purplish core. Then it morphed back into a rod that was more white-colored and appeared to be segmented, reminiscent of a bacterial rod under a microscope.”

Upon reviewing the images, the witness cannot identify the object and was later intrigued that the object appeared to emit a sound.

The witness uploaded five still images with the report, which was filed on October 29, 2014: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4 and Image 5.

“This flying object ain’t one of ours – NOT a drone, stealth bomber, planet Venus, or swamp gas. I did not hear any sounds coming from the object that night but later when I downloaded the video I was surprised to discover that my iPhone had picked up some intriguing clicking noises and when I showed the video to my neighbor S– she said, ‘It sounds like Morse code.’”

The witness decided not to share what he saw with the neighbor, but did notice that after that night they began leaving a porch light on.

“I did, however, tell one of their male neighbors and B—– agreed with me that maybe his neighbors who live in the house in question saw the object too and it spooked them?”

The witness is still out walking in the same area at night and has not noticed the object again – but did discover other nearby sightings were reported.

“My sighting in Richmond was at 11:33 p.m. on August 24, 2014, and just four hours later at 3:30 a.m. on August 25, 2014, a motorist on I-295 N near the Hopewell exit, which is only 22 miles south of Richmond, was followed up the road by a bright UFO orb that was moving a lot faster than manmade highway traffic. Then the orb targeted another car in the southbound lanes and when the sphere made contact with the other vehicle both the orb and car vanished into thin air! Then the driver of the first car saw the orb reappear, and when it started following their car up the highway again they became ‘terrified,’ put the pedal to the metal, and made a hasty retreat off the next exit in sight. I learned of this at the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC). 2.”

“Then a few hours later around 9 a.m. on August 25, 2014 a seasoned colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve was killed when his F-15 fighter jet crashed under “mysterious circumstances” in the Blue Ridge Mountains west of Richmond near Deerfield, VA. Coincidentally enough, this was in an area where lots of residents have reported UFOs in the sky and orbs near the ground. They say it took two days to recover the colonel’s body and the official Air Force story was that he was from Massachusetts on a “routine training mission.””

The witness also discovered that a Canadian couple had a similar encounter to his just four days earlier and they posted a YouTube video.

“I’m not going to speculate or draw conclusions, but it seems like an awful lot of weirdness for such a small region in ten hours! Last but not least, a couple of weeks after my ‘close encounter’ in Richmond, Virginia, USA, I was prompted to discover a seemingly-credible YouTube video of a small, blue-pinkish-violet, rod-shaped UFO that a man and woman in Ontario Canada videoed while sitting around a campground fire pit and the anomalous silent hovering object looks uncannily similar to the UFO that I photographed in Richmond, VA, when it was in ‘rod mode.’ The Ontario sighting was on August 20, 2014, only four days before my sighting in Virginia, and the Canadian couple was prompted to upload their video to YouTube on August 24 which synchronistically was the same day as my sighting!”

Virginia MUFON is investigating. Please keep in mind that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made. Virginia has a current UFO Alert Rating of 5 with a low number of recent reports nationally. Virginia had 5 UFO reports that occurred during September 2014 – calculated at .61 sightings per million population.

The UFO Alert Rating System is based on five levels – 1 through 5 – where states with 4.01 or higher reports per million residents are rated an Alert 1; 3.01 – 4.0 reports are an Alert 2; 2.51 – 3.0 are an Alert 3; 2.01 – 2.5 are an Alert 4; and those states with 2.0 or lower are rated an Alert 5.

The above quotes were edited for clarity. Please report UFO activity to MUFON.com.

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/virginia-witness-photographs-ufo-hovering-neighbors-tree/30815/feed8Virginia UFO video reminiscent of California Silver Surfer UFOshttp://www.openminds.tv/virginia-ufo-video-reminiscent-of-california-silver-surfer-ufos-1140/23713
http://www.openminds.tv/virginia-ufo-video-reminiscent-of-california-silver-surfer-ufos-1140/23713#commentsWed, 11 Sep 2013 19:23:25 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=23713A correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor recently caught some mysterious looking objects on video in Virginia. An astronomer at the University of Virginia had a hard time identifying what the objects in video might be. However, checking the Open Minds archives, they do look very similar to the Silver Surfer UFO video from 2010 that turned out to be the Red Bull Air Force skydiving team using flares that created smoke trails as they jumped.

On September 8, Lisa Suhay and her 9 year old son were driving home from the grocery store just before dusk when they spotted a bright “flare” in the sky. She says the flare “began to shoot away leaving a very bright trail.”

Suhay writes that she and her son were already planning on doing some night sky watching that evening, excited by the recent news of a sighting of a large fireball that had outshone the moon. They pulled over to get a better look at the strange tails in the sky, and Suhay captured the objects with photos and a video using her cell phone.

The video shows some strange looking contrail-like objects, however, Suhay says with her naked eye she could see, “irregular black shapes appearing in the sky with orange coronas that flared around the leading edge and bright trails of white light behind them.”

She says it also appeared that the objects were “falling up,” and some were changing course. She says the event lasted about eight minutes and left her a bit baffled as to what she just witnessed. She suspected that it could be debris from the launch of NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) at NASA’s nearby Wallops Flight Facility from the night prior.

To get some help identifying the objects, Suhay contacted Dr. Edward Murphy of the University of Virginia’s Astronomy Department and Observatory. After looking at the video and photos provided by Suhay, he responded:

From the way these are moving and the fact that two actually seem to go right at each other from opposite directions, and their speed, it isn’t likely to be a naturally occurring event but more likely some sort of very fast, high atmosphere craft. Probably military but I can’t really say.

So the event remains a mystery. However, the objects in the video are very similar to a video taken in December of 2010 that also left people scratching their heads. The man who took the video dubbed it the “Silver Surfer UFO,” as it reminded him of the trails the Silver Surfer comic book character left as he surfed the skies. The video made the local news, and had people searching for answers.

Bill Nye the Science Guy told NBC in LA that it could have been Sea Monkeys. An answer which also left people baffled. Finally, having seen the story on TV, the Red Bull Air Force came forward saying that they had actually been skydiving using flares at the time the video was taken. They had their own video of their sky dive, and sure enough they were the cause for the mysterious smoke streaks.

In order to confirm that it was skydivers Suhay saw, I called a couple of local skydiving companies. The only one I could get in touch with was the Virginia Sky Diving Center, which has a nearby facility in Virginia Beach. They were not aware of any skydiving events using flares on September 8. I also asked them to look at the video, but they could not say for sure that the objects in the video were skydivers.

I still have a few emails to local skydivers out there, so I will update this page if I hear from any of them. Until then, the mystery continues.

We discuss a UFO sighting in England that left a skeptic searching for an explanation. Alejandro Rojas also discusses his ongoing investigation into the case of Paul Bennewitz. Those and other UFO stories on this episode of Spacing Out!

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/spacing-out-episode-56-skeptic-blown-away-by-ufo-sighting/23235/feed1‘Weather balloon’ UFO crashes in Virginiahttp://www.openminds.tv/weather-balloon-ufo-crashes-in-virginia-1102/23175
http://www.openminds.tv/weather-balloon-ufo-crashes-in-virginia-1102/23175#commentsMon, 05 Aug 2013 18:42:23 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=23175A small UFO crashed in the Norfolk, Virginia neighborhood of Ocean View on the evening of Tuesday, July 30.

Local residents contacted authorities, and emergency crews were dispatched to the location of the mysterious object at approximately 6:00 pm. The Norfolk Fire Department, the U.S. Navy, and the Norfolk Bomb Squad were all reportedly dispatched to the scene.

Mysterious object that crashed in Norfolk, VA. (Credit: WVEC)

According to WVEC ABC 13, “The bomb squad used a robot to get a closer look at the square Styrofoam box package in the street. The box had a balloon attached to it and one person told authorities it was making a strange noise.”

Nearby residents were evacuated from their homes, and local traffic was restricted as investigators worked to identify the object. At approximately 8:40 pm, authorities determined the object was likely a weather balloon from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, located on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. NASA describes, “Wallops is now NASA’s principal facility for management and implementation of suborbital research programs.” Whether the object actually belongs to NASA is unknown.

The local media’s coverage of this incident was mild and straightforward. But UK news site The Register asserts that something much more sinister took place in Virginia. According to The Register, “People living and working in the immediate area were rapidly evacuated and the district was sealed off by a combination of police and military personnel. The presence of operatives from shadowy federal agencies in overall charge of the incident was – of course – not mentioned by spokesmen briefing the media.” Experts from NASA were even allegedly on site. And The Register reports that “the mystery object from the sky was apparently loaded onto an unidentified government vehicle and removed from the scene.”

Which story do you believe? Was Norfolk, VA the site of a secretive UFO recovery operation, or could these “shadowy federal agencies” dealing with the crashed object simply have been members of the bomb squad as reported by local media? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below, or on our Facebook page.

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/weather-balloon-ufo-crashes-in-virginia-1102/23175/feed4Toy planes trigger UFO reports in Virginiahttp://www.openminds.tv/toy-planes-trigger-ufo-reports-in-virginia-858/17316
http://www.openminds.tv/toy-planes-trigger-ufo-reports-in-virginia-858/17316#commentsWed, 10 Oct 2012 17:05:02 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=17316Residents of Danville, Virginia have reported seeing strange lights in the night sky for the past several weeks, and always on Wednesday nights. The Danville Police Department has even reportedly received calls about these UFOs. But according to local paper The News & Advance, what people have been seeing are remote-controlled airplanes.

Marlo the Magician with his planes. (Credit: The News & Advance)

William Crawford, a local magician who is also known as Marlo the Magician, has been flying his RC planes from an empty parking lot for the past several Wednesdays. Orange, green, and yellow LED lights affixed to the wings and the tails of the airplanes make them visible in the night sky. The News & Advance explains that these airplanes are light-weight, several feet long, silent in flight, and can go as high as six-hundred feet.

Flying toys like kites, gliders, RC helicopters, and RC planes at night has rapidly grown in popularity because LED lighting provides an easy and affordable way to illuminate these objects, creating fascinating nighttime spectacles. But because of their unusual appearance, these objects routinely generate UFO reports by curious and/or concerned witnesses.

Virginia Beach VA. November 6, 1976 – Mrs. Barbara Nielsen spotted a bell shaped UFO which hovered approximately two feet off the ground in her backyard. The craft had a light on top that blinked on and off slowly from red to white. It had rectangular windows near the bottom which emitted a phosphorescent light. The object rotated in a counter-clockwise direction, while it tipped up along its vertical axis. The UFO measured five feet high, and five feet wide. The primary eyewitness noticed a faint humming sound emanating from the craft. The bottom of the object was comprised of multiple yellow colored lights. There were black symbols running across the center section (similar to the “newsflash” text seen in Times Square). Source – Wendelle Stevens collection

Illustration of UFO described by witness by Michael Schratt

Gulf Breeze, Florida, 1987

Illustration of UFO described by witness by Michael Schratt

November 11, 1987 Gulf Breeze Florida – At dusk, Ed Walters (successful businessman) observed a glow in the southwest sky from inside his home. Going outside to investigate further, he saw a very unusual object which prompted him to quickly return inside to pick up his Polaroid camera. Mr. Walters snapped four photos of the object, and then ran out of film. As he took each photo, he dropped them on the driveway. Returning inside to obtain more film, he was able to get an additional photograph of the UFO as it approached his position. Then, Ed went into the street and was about to take another shot, when he was shocked to find himself frozen in a blue beam of light. He was immobilized for approximately ten seconds, and reported the following effects: his eyebrows would not move, he could not expand his chest, felt like he was going to die, he could barely breathe. Next, he felt himself being lifted off the road within the blue beam of light, and was dropped from an altitude of approximately three feet. Eventually Ed’s wife drove up in her van, and helped him pick up the photos off the driveway. She immediately noted that he smelled like “cinnamon and ammonia”. Investigated by MUFON, and documented by NICAP.

Illustration of UFO described by witness by Michael Schratt

Anderson, South Carolina, 1980

Illustration of UFO described by witness by Michael Schratt

In the early morning hours of September 11, 1980 Mr. Jerry McAllister (resident of Anderson, South Carolina) was awakened by a brilliant light. He quickly jumped out of bed, and witnessed a large luminous object hovering in a horizontal position. Mr. McAllister also alerted his wife, and urged her to view the object as well. The craft was no more than 150 feet away, and approximately forty feet above the tree-tops. The object was completely surrounded with multiple halogen-like headlights which lit up the surrounding area like day, and it emitted an ear-shattering noise. Above the lights were a row of rectangular shaped windows which emanated a deep purple colored light, and measured 6’ X 8’. There was a smooth raised “seam” located immediately above the windows, which ran along the entire circumference of the object. The bottom surface of the craft was flat and dark in color. A small red light was connected to a curved pipe-like structure that was located on the bottom of the craft. Mr. Carter contacted the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office, and Deputy Mike Burton arrived at the scene in time to witness the UFO’s departure. Residual effects on the witnesses from the craft included: eye irritation, ringing in the ears, and headaches. Evidence of dangerous radiation was found in the nearby soil where the craft had hovered, and also on pine needles. A recommendation was made that the area under the ship’s hovering position be roped off. Source – Wendelle Stevens collection (confirmed by NICAP).

One of the strangest cases in the history of UFO sightings occurred in 1874 at Oaxaca, Mexico where a giant “Trumpet’ shaped craft hovered in the sky, and swung gently for six minutes. Multiple eyewitnesses were reported to have seen the strange object. Of special note is the fact that the town of Oaxaca, Mexico has had UFO sightings of “rods” and daylight orbs as recently as October 17, 2010.

On December 21, 1964 while driving near Staunton, VA, Horace Burns noticed that his car radio began emitting a high-pitched whine. Immediately thereafter, he was astonished to see an inverted “flying beehive” cross the road, and land in a nearby field for about one minute before it rose up and shot away. The craft was silver in color with a bright orange-yellow colored dome on top. Below the dome, there were approximately six horizontal bands which decreased in diameter. The bottom of the craft had a small revolving disc with a tube-like structure which extended a short distance.

On November 20, 1956 Elsie Krajewski of Danielson, Connecticut saw a series of lights moving near the horizon to the north. Soon after, the lights started approaching closer and she initially thought they might be from a nearby aircraft. Then, Elise noticed a structured craft that was in the form of a half sphere with yellow light emanating from inside. There were a series of multi-colored lights near the bottom which were rotating at a slow rate of speed. Then the object moved downward as if it was going to land, but stopped just short of the ground. Next the craft rose up and barely cleared the roof of her house. Ms. Krajewski described the craft as being approximately twenty-five feet across, and 10 feet high and slightly translucent. There were absolutely no doors, windows or seams of any kind. She also noticed that the craft emitted no noise whatsoever. At this point she observed the “sockets” which were gold in color, and looked like three stacked doughnuts separated by two black bands.

There was a colored bulb in the bottom of each socket. On each of the three gold “doughnuts”, there was a design which looked like Arabic writing which consisted of curved lines, dots and dashes. Ms. Krajewski commented that the designs resembled the exterior borders of Oriental or Persian rugs. They also resembled designs seen on Mayan, Aztec or Inca pottery and blankets. The inscriptions on all the gold rings were identical. There were a total of twenty-four sockets, each containing a different colored bulb (red, green, blue, orange, yellow and white). The pattern of the sockets repeated, and all were connected to a sub-floor which was indented two feet up inside the rim of the craft. Next, the craft dropped to an altitude of about eight feet, and continued down a nearby road until it was no longer in view.

The mysterious blue UFO that appeared above Centreville, Virginia in early November has been identified, according to Fox 5 in Washington, DC.

The strange blue light was back in the sky above Centreville on Monday night. After the first sighting earlier in November, Fox 5 received emails from across the country, but their attention was drawn to one particular email that said, “I have information on the blue UFO lights.” A Fox 5 news team met the sender of the email in a dark Centreville field, where he revealed to them his remote controlled glider plane, adorned with blue LED lights.

After being shown a video of the glider in flight by Fox 5, the witness who videotaped the blue light back in early November is “almost positive” that what he saw was the illuminated glider.